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hope

Remember the old Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Khan? It opened with the starship being attacked – and quickly overpowered. Just as it seemed all hands were about to perish, the lights came on, and it turned out we’d been witnessing a test, the same one faced by every would-be Starfleet captain. It was called the Kobayashi Maru, and it placed the candidate in an impossible, unwinnable situation. The point was to see how they would act when faced with the end of the line, the failure to save their ship and their crew.

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A few days ago, I was at an event that referenced the work of Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, and I was reminded about one of the points she so abundantly demonstrated: that racism is fundamentally interwoven into the social and economic structures of our society, and that structural racism is incredibly resilient: as one expression, such as segregation, is dismantled, another iteration is already being consciously developed, is already waiting in the wings, ready to be deployed in the service of protecting the profits of the elite.

The experts were saying, We need to be constantly vigilant, constantly on our guard, because as we’re slicing off the head that’s actively biting us, this hydra has many more ravenous mouths that could very well be devouring our resources while we’re not watching.

And I was feeling despair. The thoughts going through my head: What’s the point of burning up all our energy and grinding ourselves down to useless little stubs to get this one law passed, when they’ve already regrouped for the next fight before they’ve even lost this one? Is the whole thing a setup? Are they keeping us distracted, battling for something they’ve already moved on from – while they just consolidate their power and wealth more and more tightly?

And if that’s the case, how can I go on?

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Something hopeful I took with me from grad school: Hegemony is never complete. It can’t be. It’s impossible for any ruling class to COMPLETELY control the discourse, the helping institutions, relationships, our thoughts, heck, even the military. These phenomena are too complex, too slippery. Yes, they can exert a lot of damn control, but it will never be perfect. There will always, must always, inherently be gaps.

And in those gaps exists the possibility of revolution.

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The next day, I heard this story, an African folk tale about animals getting the heck out of Dodge as a grass fire roared across the savannah. An elephant was distracted in its charge toward the safety of a marsh by something tiny and buzzing. It raced past the elephant – then it reappeared, going back the way it had come. Then it passed the elephant again, and again zoomed back toward the fire.

The elephant put up its trunk to stop the creature, which turned out to be a hummingbird, carrying water in its beak, a drop at a time, to pour onto the fire. The elephant asked why the hummingbird bothered. The hummingbird said, I want to save my home. And this is what I have to give. So I must give it…

When we decide whether to act or not based on whether we think we can possibly affect the outcome, the person telling this story suggested, we’re likely to stop acting entirely.

So we can’t allow ourselves to think this way. When confronted with disaster, with injustice, with huge suffering, we must give what is in our capacity to give, and try – as a spiritual practice – to let go of the need to know that if we keep efforting, we’ll get the outcome we want.

Because sometimes the calling is just to alleviate the crushing weight of sorrow for one person, for just a while, even if we’re still doomed.

And sometimes, our attachment to one imagined outcome is preventing something much better from being born.

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I wondered then if we weren’t living some cosmic Kobayashi Maru. If our guides aren’t up there watching with serious faces, trying to see the mettle of our character as we struggle and give up and get re-inspired and struggle some more, even as each victory is absorbed almost soundlessly into the ocean of history, and the greedy and powerful remain untouched.

I wondered if that was enough of a point. If it could be enough to make me willing to keep living.

But then I remembered that Captain Kirk (well, Admiral in that movie) had forced a different outcome. As a cadet, he beat the Kobayashi Maru and saved his pretend ship from destruction by hacking the test, reprogramming the simulation to make it possible for the lives of the crew to be saved.

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There’s always a hack.

There’s always a gap of possibility.

Actually there are MANY possibilities.

Just because we don’t know what they are yet, doesn’t mean they’re not there.

I think I need to have faith that a better world, a just world, really is possible. But I don’t need to know what it looks like exactly, or know that what I’m doing is going to help us get there in a linear fashion.

I think we need to keep trying everything. Every creative intervention we can think of. Even if we’re not convinced it will make a difference to the power structure currently hobbling our human spirits.

I suspect that whatever finally pushes us over the edge will be a surprise.

And it’s only by trying all the things, and keeping trying in the face of seeming failure, that we’ll ensure the door is propped open when the answer is ready to come in.

Last year at work, my friend and I were trying to pick an image to go with our company’s New Year message. We both liked this stock photo but weren’t sure if it fit.

“It totally does,” I said. “Look. It’s the baby New Year being born from the lotus.”

“Ooooh,” she said, or something like that. The concept charmed us both — the sparkles of unformed possibility bursting, no, floating, no, rising lightly and cheerfully from the flower that had finally bloomed out of the mud and the tears of the past year.

Well, alas, our idea was vetoed by our bosses in favor of a more traditional narrative, but I held on to it in my mind. I love creating alternative mythologies, and once the story has been spoken aloud, it is in my opinion as valid as any legend. After all, every fairy tale was first made up by SOMEone before going the medieval equivalent of viral. So yes, I sometimes write my own myths and then live by their morals. I claim this as my creative prerogative.

We did use the stock image for other posts throughout the year, and every time I saw it I remembered the baby New Year. And I decided that come 2016 I would use it on my own blog. And so I made an account and bought the credits and and downloaded my very first stock photo, and now I own it.

Which brings me to my theme for 2016: Owning it.

What does that mean?

2015’s theme, that is, the spiritual power I intended to claim by calling up and facing anything and everything in my inner world that stood between me and that power, was Self Love. Anyone who knows me knows I have been plagued (have plagued myself) with an ultra critical, downright mean and nasty inner voice of self judgment for as long as I can remember, certainly since wee childhood. This voice kept me living in a thick, heavy shell, kept me always tearing myself down, pushing myself to exhaustion, never able to fully receive love since I didn’t believe I was worthy, never able to really share my light because I believed I was so insignificant, so annoying, so bad at things, such an eyesore.

I began last year finally wishing to change that, ready to let go of a way of thinking that I had come to understand was warped, dark, self defeating, unhelpful. I made the commitment to free myself from that sticky mental web in which my angry judging self held my heart captive and sucked its energy like a spider drains the life force from a bug.

The challenges came. It was a tough year for my heart. But every time life asked me to do something that I thought I could never find the strength to do, if my deeper guidance whispered that it was the path of self love, I tried my best to do it. I took many steps into the scary unknown, following that faint and mystical light. Sometimes my only criterion for success was that I do it differently than I had done it in the past. And in this way I set about breaking habits.

And as the year went on I noticed these habits, like broken chains, falling away. I began to feel lighter. More confident. Gradually, the balance shifted and the mean voice got quieter and the voice of my heart, my dreams, my inner knowing, got louder, until it was the first voice I heard instead of the last. I began to recognize my heart’s desires as a source of guidance, longings placed there by Spirit to help me find my direction in life.

I’ve come to accept that this voice, this guidance, is true for me. But it’s still a little scary for me to make it the practical compass of my life, to really live by it, especially when it seems to sometimes take me in the opposite direction from the current of the “main stream,” or to go against what I perceive to be the preferences of the people around m

So that’s where I am today. Working on owning it. Experimenting with living life according to my own quirky standards, with taking my marching orders from Spirit as I try to become a little better every day at decoding the instructions that bubble up from the depths of my soul. Just that. Living from my core, my essence. Not claiming to always fully understand the messages, knowing that at any moment I could be totally missing the mark, but trying, trying to hear, trying to hear better all the time.

Having released a large portion of my inner self judgment, it’s time for me now to release my attachment to others’ approval. It’s time to face the degree to which I limit my choices out of the fear of not being liked.

Call me crazy, but this feels like the easier of the two.

When I understand that I have inherent value, I have less drive to find my sense of self worth in others’ opinions. Instead of a survival need, it becomes simply a habit. It feels comfortable, but it’s a false comfort — it’s actually just an attempt at distracting myself from the underlying anxiety, the gnawing fear that I am not and never will be connected to other humans in a meaningful way.

Luckily, I have quit enough habits, enough methods of self distraction, to know that it’s totally doable. And I also know with both my brain and my heart that what I fear is not true; I am beautifully and indissolubly connected with all of life, and with all human beings. And I also know that — to paraphrase Marianne Williamson’s famous quote — it can be far more terrifying to embrace our connectedness, our interdependence, our strength, our beauty, our truth, our dreams, our magic, and to accept the responsibility that comes with our power, than it is to imagine ourselves small, helpless, and alone.

So my intention, my challenge, this year is to own it. To own all of the above. To believe in my worth, my lovability, my vision, and to act like I believe it in front of the world.

And here’s a really odd thing. Since crystallizing this intention a week or so ago, I have noticed a subtle but perhaps significant change in myself. I am normally very, very, um, VERY introverted when it comes to actually talking to people. (As a Leo I don’t have a problem being on stage performing, but as a Cancer cusp + moon I pretty much hate and fear social interaction, except with people I already know and feel safe around, and even then, it can be iffy.) Lately, though, I’ve been — striking up conversations. With strangers. And the exchanges have been — really nice.

It’s like maybe, as I begin to let go of the fear of not being accepted, as I realize that I don’t truly NEED others’ approval when I have my own, I am less afraid of these other unknown humans walking around on earth with me, jostling egos with each other and with me, like we all always do. As I am less afraid, I am more curious. As I am more curious, I am more open. As I am more open, I am less defensive, and I allow more love into my heart.

How funny. By caring less about whether others love me, I actually begin to experience more love.

This understanding, like this new year, is still just a baby. I know I have many layers to work through before I really get this power of “owning it,” before I really feel it as part of me. But those sparkles of possibility rising from the lotus are so hopeful.